What Did Mark Twain Eat? Author Discusses His Book

Connecticut shad was a Twain favorite

so was opossum

August 12, 2010|BY WILLIAM WEIR, bweir@courant.com

For all the labels we've given Mark Twain — humorist, advocate of social reform — we've managed to overlook "foodie."

But Twain's devotion to food, American food in particular, gets full examination in "Twain's Feast: Searching for America's Lost Foods in the Footsteps of Samuel Clemens" by Connecticut native Andrew Beahrs.

He will discuss the book at the Mark Twain House Aug. 19 at an event that will include a reception and food (probably local, in the spirit of Twain). Also, folks from the Montblanc pen company will present the Mark Twain House with its "Mark Twain Limited Writers Edition 2010 writing instrument," an elaborately designed $750 pen.

Despite his wife's warnings ("I just don't want you to become 'that freaky Twain guy'"), Beahrs threw himself head-first into researching the book. He cooked Twain's favorite breakfast for his family. He went to the Gillet Coon Supper, an annual event that kicks off the political season for the town of Gillet, Ark. (pop. 800, "Home of Friendly People and the Coon Supper"). That's where he ate raccoon. Despite an overwhelming smell during the cooking ("like nothing I've smelled before, but which I'll now recognize until I die"), it tasted mostly like the dark meat of a chicken.

Beahrs, who grew up in Darien, also returned to Connecticut to talk with maple-syrup makers. He was surprised that Twain, who otherwise had a taste for strong flavors, preferred clear syrup over the more flavorful dark variety.

Beahrs, who now lives with his family in California, says the seed of the book came about when he came across a list of more than 80 foods Twain wrote in 1879 while in Europe. The trip was a culinary disaster for Twain. European hotel food (particularly the saltless butter, which he called a "sham") irked him. The list was a love letter to the foods that Twain missed the most. Much of it sounds great ("apple dumplings with real cream," "roast wild turkey"), some of it a little iffy ("sheep-head and croakers," frogs, opossum, aforementioned raccoon).

The list skews toward Southern cuisine ("hot corn-pone, with chitlings," "hoe-cake"), but Twain's 17 years in Hartford get their due with the inclusion of Connecticut shad.

Twain and food might sound like a sliver of a topic, but Beahrs uses it as a starting point for looking at how much our eating habits and our attitudes about food have changed. Also, it shows how much things come full circle. Long before anyone coined the term "locavore," Twain's list is a reminder of just how local food was all the time.

Beahrs was surprised by how much food changed just during Twain's lifetime as railroads and steamboats gained in efficiency and transporting food over long distances diminished the role of regional fare.

The most mysterious item on Twain's list to catch Beahrs' eye: Prairie chickens. Beahrs learned that they existed in the millions in Illinois when Twain spent his summers on his uncle's farm. Today, prarie chickens are all but gone, existing in the mere hundreds in Illinois.

It was on that farm, Beahrs says, where Twain acquired his appreciation for food.

"And once you start looking for it, you see that it's threaded throughout all his novels," Beahrs says. For instance, here's Huck discussing a particularly good meal: "So Jim he got out some corn-dodgers, and buttermilk, and pork and cabbage and greens — there ain't nothing in the world so good when it's cooked right."

Steve Courtney, publicist for the Mark Twain House, says the book is a great look at Twain's attitudes toward food. As for his Hartford dinners, Courtney says meals tended to include things like molded jellos, chicken and mayonnaise and something called scalloped oysters.